What? An adaptation of an anime in a live action Hollywood movie? *groans* Oh, not again! What? It's the Wachowski Brothers? Mmmmaybe. Cast from all over the world? Ooookay... Fine, let's see what this movie has to offer.
*after the movie*
GODDAMIT, that ROCKED.
As stated above, the history of anime adaptations into live action movies is a long and full of failures one.
Dragon Ball: Evolution taught the anime fans the lesson to never trust Hollywood. And in many cases, it is a fair accusation of dishonor and disrespect of the original source.
However, the Wachowski brothers show us that yes, there is the way to respect the source and give the final product your own mark. It all has to do with vision and these two surely have it.
The plot is fairly simple and quite well-known to the fans of the anime series: Speed Racer (yes, that's his name) is a young race car driver, who is haunted by the past of his family. His idol and older brother, Rex Racer ended up being branded a dirty racer, destroying other racers' cars instead of competing them and died in one of the most dangerous races, leaving a bad name and a black spot in the history of racing. However, he also left an unbeatable world record, which Speed, although capable of surpassing it, never dares to do so. His talent draws in sponsors, but Speed always turns them down, since his family is well capable of providing him the car he needs. One sponsor, though, Royalton is more stubborn than the others and spits on Speed's ideas for racing, proclaiming that "all that matters is power and the unassailable might of money!” Speed, after being caught in a trap that momentarily excludes him from the Gran Pri, is determined to show him that winning fairly and squarely, with his family as a team is above anything.
This rather basic and cliche idea is narrated with talent, vision and a lot of humor and intelligence. The visuals are astounding, successfully giving the cartoon-ish atmosphere of the anime, but always enough down-to-earth to convince the audience that they are in this world. Colorful, flashy, shiny and polished, the environment will blow your mind away.
The pacing is also very good, with the exceedingly fast racing scenes mixing well with the dialog and more intimate scenes between the characters.
Which leads me to my next point: the characters. Fair enough,
Emile Hirsch is bland and quite empty, but this is what Speed himself is: the typical shounen hero, with just a fighting spirit and some good looks to boot. But, we do not care much about him. Oh, no, the rest of the cast is damn enough to provoke emotions, make us sympathize with them and want them to either be happy or just fail, if they are the villains. John Goodman is a fitting Pops Racer, very convincing in his role. Roger Allam is another good choice. He pictures Royalton with the appropriate malice.
But, everyone pales before this guy.
Paulie Litt as Spritle is the God Almighty of this movie that no one can overthrow. It is rare to see a kid playing the kid so well. Even though he is the comic relief, he steals the attention and love of the audience without effort. The kid's a natural. His character is energetic, naughty, a little smoothie glutton with style and some of the best lines in the movie. Paulie can do it, because you know he has the talent and the emotional wealth to do it. He is Awesome, end of story.
The climax pays up for all the building up, serious bulding up, I must say. After all, how further you can get from having race cars running on one wheel and crushing in each other like plastic balls? Apparently, you can also make them riding mountains, jumping like grasshoppers and mimic hokey players. GOD, that movie was Awesome.
9/10 and I wish more people who want to adapt cartoon in live action movies would take notes from the Wachowski brothers. Show them the way!
Also, bonus points for the evil guy's truck looking like the Mammoth Car 
